The snake poked its head out from underneath the downed screen and opened its jaws. Moni saw its white mouth and hooked fangs. One bite from the water moccasin, also known as the Florida cottonmouth because of the color of its most deadly weapon, could kill a grown person. The same amount of poison in Mariella’s small body would stop her heart quicker than a light switch getting flicked off.
Moni dashed across her living room. She couldn’t make it in time. She heard her cat Tropic hissing and yowling from her bedroom. Moni screamed at the snake as if the shockwaves of anger in her voice could stop it. The water moccasin coiled up and readied to pounce on Mariella’s back. The girl didn’t see it. She didn’t move, or even seem disturbed in the least by the sight of Moni freaking out.
The snake sprang toward the girl. Aaron dove from the other side. Mariella ducked out of Aaron’s way. The snake’s white mouth snapped at him as he fell on his shoulder. Moni couldn’t tell whether it had struck him or not, but he spit enough curses to make a truck driver faint. Mariella scampered into her room and slammed the door.
When Aaron sat up, he faced one peeved reptile. It didn’t hiss, but it recoiled into attack mode.
“Roll!” Moni yelled at him as she trained her gun on it.
Aaron reacted with more of a flop than a roll. It worked well enough. The water moccasin hesitated in its attack and Moni shot its head off. Its body fell limp as a rubber band as its blood trickled, not poured, onto her carpet.
“Oh damn…” Aaron gasped as he scrambled to the couch. If the snake had bit him, he couldn’t have gotten back on his feet. He gawked at Moni’s smoking gun. “Thank you.”
“I should thank you,” she said as she holstered the weapon. “You got Mariella out of the way.”
“I didn’t lay a finger on her. I tried to shove her away from it, but she took off so fast. The girl’s got survival instincts.”
“That’s for sure. But we got lucky this time. Thank God you were standing close enough…”
“To serve as bait.” He rubbed the forearm the snake had nearly sunk its fangs into.
“You’re pretty brave for a surfer dude.” Moni trotted up and kissed him on the cheek. She felt a spark there, like a rock striking a piece of flint. A couple more times and it might start burning.
Maybe Darren had it wrong about this guy, she thought. Aaron proved that he’d protect her and Mariella. It took her long enough, but she realized that a good heart-even without the guns to back it up-counted more than all muscle and selfish intentions.
“How about I take you up on that horseback riding trip?”
“Sweet,” he said with a beaming grin. “Let’s tell Mariella.”
As he turned toward the girl’s room, she gently grabbed his arm and halted him.
“Not such a good idea. My baby got spooked. Let her calm down. I’ll tell her before bed.”
“All right. I feel ya.” Aaron sounded as gangster with that phrase as a cat sounds tough barking. Moni giggled. “But I think we should hold off on the pizza for tonight. I better clean up this mess and deliver the remains to the AMRI lab before they spoil.”
Moni dropped her smile as she eyed the dead snake. It resembled a black garden hose that had exploded at one end.
“What’s gonna spoil? I mean, besides my appetite.” Moni pressed her hand against her stomach and stuck out her tongue.
“I bet it’s loaded with bacteria,” Aaron said. “The snake should have bounced off your screen and maybe ripped it along the edge a bit, not tore through it. And then there’s that.”
In the pool of blood underneath the snake’s mangled head festered a smidgen of purple ooze.
Gators, birds, manatees and now snakes infected with the bacteria had attacked people, Moni thought. Most of their targets had died. If Aaron hadn’t gone all out on that desperate dive, Mariella would have wound up like the others.
Moni’s heart numbed over with a chill. The words her father had stuffed into her ear only hours ago rang through her head.
“The lagoon man has a hunger and I smelled it out there today. That girl belongs to his lagoon and he’s coming to take her back. You can’t stop it, so you best get outta the way.”